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by callunavulgari



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 10:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: “Rey,” he says into the quiet. “Just drive.”





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**Author's Note:**

> I had a shitty day and basically wanted to write about someone being angry and sad and driving real fast. Originally I was planning on going with the Stranger Things dudes, but I guess I wanted to write modern day Skywalkers still being disasters. I wrote this in like an hour and can't be fucked to beta right now, so if there are any grammatical issues, my bad.

Rey bares her teeth at him when he climbs into the car next to her. It’s an old car, one that he remembers from long car rides through dimly lit forests and across state lines, peering at his parents from the backseat as they argued and argued.

He doesn’t ask why the car is hers now.

Doesn’t ask why it hums with new power under him, why it smells like pine trees instead of the biting reek of stale cigarettes and fresh gasoline. The rattle that he remembers from his childhood is gone, leaving a powerful purr behind. The Falcon doesn’t smell like his father anymore. There’s nothing of him left in this car, except the ghost of a memory sitting where Rey is now.

Ben settles back into the passenger seat, pretending to examine the receipts that Rey’s tucked beneath the sun vizor. She’s glowering at him, her fingers white-knuckled around the clutch.

“Get out,” she hisses, venom in her voice.

Ben shrugs. “No.”

Her eyes could cut glass, but Ben’s had practice at ignoring her glares. It’s been well over a decade since his uncle had pulled her, starving and half feral, out of the gutter and into their family. Into their home. He may not have seen them in years, but he knows her well enough.

“Get _out_ ,” she warns again from between gritted teeth, revving the engine.

Ben makes a face, brushing a speck of dust from his suit.

“No.”

“I swear to god, Ben-”

Ben sighs heavily, laying an arm down on the rest between them. He turns to her, and for the first time all day, he really looks. Her hair is frizzing where its come loose from her bun, and there’s engine oil beneath her fingernails. Her dress, modest enough when standing, is riding up her thighs, the cut scandalously short for a funeral. He would bet money that she didn’t pick it out herself.

Her eyes scald him - all the anger and accusation that he’s been avoiding for the last few years narrowed down to a single point. Her brow is pulled tight into a frown and she- she’s itching for this. He knows she is, because even if he hasn’t seen her in six years, Ben grew up alongside of her. He’d been there for her early years, when just keeping her from running was hard enough.

He’d chased her across state lines, kept her from hopping busses, dragged her kicking and screaming to return every stolen car. 

He knew the fire in her. He had it, too.

And he knew that it was burning.

“Rey,” he says into the quiet. “Just drive.”

She bares her teeth again, lip curled into an effortless, _vicious_ snarl. Her eyes narrow. Around them, the car hums with power. It sounds as angry as she does.

“You’ll regret that,” she warns, and when he says nothing, she makes a quiet irritated noise and slams the car into reverse, peeling explosively out of the lot. Dust clouds the road behind them. He can smell the burning rubber.

To his surprise, she keeps them at 40 until they reach the highway, and only then does she truly let go. The engine roars as she slams her foot on the gas, and Ben watches with a dry mouth as the speedometer climbs- up and up and up.

His father had called it going turbo. Accelerating hard and fast just to make Ben, and later, Rey, squeal with delight in the backseat. Ben’s mother had always called him too reckless, a secret smile playing around the edges of her mouth.

Rey does it differently. There’s no joy here in the car with them, only rage thrumming in the space between them, and the memory of a man that they’d both lost.

They drive until nightfall. He doesn’t know where she takes them, the cars and trees passing by in a blur of color and the whip of the wind. He wants a cigarette, desperately.

When she finally stops, it isn’t a quiet, easy thing. She _slams_ them into park, so hard that his head lolls forward on his shoulders, as if tempted to roll right off his neck. He glances at her, but she’s already shoving herself out of her seat, not even yanking the keys from the ignition before she’s stumbling out into the night. She slams the door behind her.

Carefully, he takes the keys from the ignition and steps out after her.

They’re in some kind of park, he thinks, glancing around. There isn’t a playground, but there are some swings and benches lining the shore of a gleaming duck pond. He thinks he can make out some sort of gazebo or pavilion beyond that, but after that it’s all forest, dark and ominous.

For a moment, he can’t spot her, and feels a familiar panic tight in his chest. Then, there- a human-shaped shadow moving along the shore.

She stalks along the perimeter of the lake for a while, tromping through reeds instead of sticking to the trail, and stumbles to a stop just past the gazebo, near the line of dark trees. He watches her crumble, her knees going out from under her as she drops to the grass.

When he reaches her, he sits on the muddy ground next to her. His suit is worth more than the car, and his publicist is going to fucking murder him when the little fuck sees him. Ben doesn’t care.

“Why did you come today?” she asks him.

Ben swallows. “Because I wanted to.”

She turns to him, her gaze hostile.

“You never cared about him when he was alive,” she hisses, her voice raw like a wound. She squirms, tearing up fistfuls of grass. She’s kicked off her shoes, he realizes, staring at her bare, muddy ankles. “Why would you now? You haven’t even-”

She cuts herself off, but he can imagine what she’d say. He hasn’t been here. He doesn’t have the right to grieve because he’d cut them out years ago. Hadn’t even known that his father was wasting away. Didn’t know that he was sick until a reporter had thrust a microphone in his face and asked him how he felt about his father dying.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know.”

“And whose fault is that?” she barks.

He licks his lips. “Mine. I know.”

“Then why-” she demands, shifting around to face him fully. She’s sitting cross-legged, her thighs creamy and bare in the moonlight. They’re distracting.

She’s hurt. She’s been hurting since he left. That was the point, of course, to make a clean break, and leave her furious with him. Not wanting to see him again. She’d texted, at first. And then she’d emailed, and then… nothing.

He supposes she might have kept writing if he’d written back.

“Rey-”

“Stop calling me that!” she cries, shoving him backwards onto the grass, her voice thick with tears. She hits him, weakly, and holds him on the grass beneath her, one hand pressed to his throat, the other to his shoulder. “Stop talking to me like you still know me! Like you understand! You don’t! You- god, you don’t understand anything.”

She sobs, and he lies still under her as she cries. He waits until her entire body is shaking with sobs before he shrugs out of her hold, and pushes himself up again. Carefully, he takes her into his arms.

It’s been six years since he held her. Too long.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“You’re not,” she wails, and he can’t protest, because she’s right. Ben mourns his father the same way that he mourns his childhood.

“I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” he says instead, because that part is true.

“You- you left, Ben. You just left.”

He nods, and holds her tighter. He left. She was sixteen years old and half-family, half-not, and he’d _wanted_. She wasn’t his sister. Wasn’t even his cousin. But he was twenty and she was sixteen, and she _trusted_ him.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, nose buried in her hair. It smells like sweat and engine oil and a little like jasmine. “I’m sorry.”

She sobs again, quieter, and he wants the anger back. Wishes that she’d just hit him instead of crying. At least then she wouldn’t be sad.

It takes her some time to quiet down, the tears slowly draining out of her.

“Did you know?” she asks him softly, later. Her head is on his chest. There are fireflies above them. “Was I the reason that you left?”

“Yes,” he replies, equally soft. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

A moment of silence passes, the clouds racing across the surface of the moon. He can feel her heart against his. She’s calmer than he would have expected.

“You liked me back, didn’t you?” she asks, shifting to look up at him.

Her face is blotchy and streaked with tears, strands of unruly hair sticking to her damp cheeks. He’s missed her, horribly.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I did.”

The damp is seeping into their clothes. She’s starting to shiver. He wants nothing more than to keep holding her, but he tugs her up instead, and together they make their way towards the car. She says nothing when he climbs into the driver’s seat, just watches him with warm brown eyes.

They’re already on the interstate when she says, soft and quiet into the silence, “Will you leave again?”

He glances at her, then back to the endless road. “Do you want me to?”

She licks her lips, considering him. Her eyes track over him, snagging on all things different, unfamiliar, the parts of him that had changed without her knowing. His longer hair, the broader shoulders, the stupidly expensive suit.

“No,” she says. “I don’t think I do. I think I want you to stay.”

He looks at her, even now, and still, he wants.

“You’re sure?”

She reaches out, and lays her hand over his. It’s warm. Good. Enough, for now.

“I’m sure.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, my [main blog](http://callunavulgari.tumblr.com/) and my [writing blog](http://callunawrites.tumblr.com/)!


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